


Consuming Passion

by Parhelion



Category: Nero Wolfe - Stout
Genre: Community: kink_bingo, Food, M/M, PWP
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-08-13
Updated: 2009-08-13
Packaged: 2017-10-03 16:01:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Parhelion/pseuds/Parhelion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wolfe never misses the chance for Archie to learn something new about food.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Consuming Passion

In my case reports, I might have given the impression that Nero Wolfe, mostly private detective and semi-public nuisance, long ago gave up what he calls "the amatory arts" in favor of cultivating his ten thousand orchid plants and eating triple helpings of his chef Fritz's high-class cuisine. I might also have been lying, if only by omission. Since neither of us thinks much of the standards of hygiene in New York State prisons, there are some illegal details to the domesticity in his brownstone on 35th street that I feel free to leave out of my books.

Enough to say, I find my private life entertaining, and Wolfe plays his role in my amusements. Soon after he hired me to do all his bookkeeping and his legwork -- not to mention fending off his female clients -- I took over another little chore that I figured might ease the strain having to work puts on the fat genius's temperament.

As it turned out, I figured right. But what I hadn't figured on was finding my new chore enjoyable in an exotic kind of way. After some consideration, I decided that was fine. I also wouldn't have predicted I might develop a taste for shad roe casserole or escargot a la Wolfe, and I had already learned to like both at Nero Wolfe's dining room table.

Even after all these years, it's hard to predict what will stir him, but he does show some signs I can recognize. This last Wednesday in August, for example, we were discussing during dinner the influence of dyes on history. Since that wasn't a topic covered back at dear old Chillicothe High, I was mostly sticking to eating while he spoke. Wolfe was accompanying dessert with stories about how indigo contributed to settling the South when he suddenly stopped talking and sat there watching me. Since my mouth was full, I raised an eyebrow at him rather than asking why the intermission.

"You approve of the sweet bread?"

After swallowing, I told him, "I do, if you want an amateur's opinion."

"Your opinions make up in immediacy what they lack in refinement." Wolfe was leaning back in his chair as he waited for my reply with his head tilted a half-inch to one side, a posture I had seen before. The sight of his fingertips slowly stroking the mahogany tabletop was also familiar.

I hid my grin. "Okay. Since you asked, this is good. I like the spice, even though it's not one of the usuals."

"No, it isn't." He considered me for maybe three seconds. "I will mention your praise to Fritz." Then he went back to telling me how trampling a mash of indigo plants will turn your feet blue.

That was that for the time it took to drink our after-dinner coffee and spend a quiet evening in the office talking forensics. Wolfe did say goodnight a little earlier than most nights, and I didn't linger over the office chores before I went upstairs to my own bedroom. There, I took my time showering off the dirt of my day before donning the silk dressing gown Wolfe gave me for my last birthday over my pajama bottoms. I didn't bother with the tops.

Wolfe had left off the alarm outside his bedroom. I knocked twice before I went in. From the bed where he was propped against his pillows, reading a French magazine, he glanced up at me and said, "Archie."

He had also skipped his yellow silk pajama tops, all the evidence I needed to know that I had read him right. I sauntered over to where I could inspect the page he was reading. It was still in French, and I envied the shirt the guy in the photo wore. "Any good? I wouldn't want to interrupt."

His grunt implied a snort. After dog-earring his article, he put down the magazine on the bedside table next to some small, open jars. Then he threw back his covers and told me, "Give me your hand."

Sitting on the edge of his mattress next to him, I did. He grasped it. With the kind of delicacy you wouldn't think he could manage with those big, fat fingers, he used his other hand to pinch out some greenish brown seeds from the first jar. Then he sprinkled them onto the heel of my palm. Letting go, he said, "Tell me what those are."

I played along. Raising my palm closer to my nose, I sniffed. Then I tasted, not making the wrong kind of show out of it but using my mouth in the way Wolfe and Fritz had taught me. "Easy. Anise."

The next spice went along the mounds between my fingers, well clear of the anise. It was a red-tan powder. "And this?"

That was harder. I had to taste the spice twice and think again while working it back and forth across my tongue. "Mace." Not nutmeg, as I had been tempted to answer at first.

Wolfe's gaze never left my face. His eyelids had narrowed to slits, the way they did when he was focusing all his attention on witnesses' words while they answered his questions in the office downstairs. Murder suspects didn't make the pulse at his neck beat faster, though.

All he asked was, "Do you need something to cleanse your palate?"

I considered, checking my teeth and lips with the tip of my tongue to make sure they were clean. "No, I'm fine."

He took my hand again, his grip firm . "Then try this." He rubbed a good smear of yellow-green powder along my palm just below the thumb.

This time, I needed a while to consider. The spice was a little like lemon and a little like ginger but mainly like something all its own. It was the unfamiliar taste from tonight's bread, all right. "Okay, I think I have it. What's the name I missed?"

"Ground cardamom."

"I'll remember that, next time."

Wolfe nodded, just a twitch to someone who didn't know him. "Satisfactory." Then he reached out and captured my hand one last time. Leaning in, his tongue slowly began to trace the places along my palms where the spices had tinted my skin.

With most of my company, I'm expected to provide the subtleties between the sheets, not enjoy them. By the time he was done with my hand, I felt no urge to complain when he dipped a fingertip into one of the jars and then slowly ran it around my bare chest and down towards my pajamas. His lips, tongue, and teeth leisurely followed the route he had traced out with spice.

He took his time marking and tasting me, enjoying both skin and spices like they were the ingredients of the finest dish ever to grace his table. When he pulled my pajama bottoms out of his way, I was already shaking, disinclined to crack wise about whatever he was up to. Just as well, since he flipped me over and really settled in to savor the fine points of his latest cuisine.

When I couldn't choke off my noises against his sheets any longer, he stopped what he was doing with his tongue. He's good about not making me beg even though we both know he could. Sliding his hands off my ass cheeks, he let me roll over and catch my breath until I could ask him, "See anything else that could use some spicing up?"

The look in his eyes was still hungry, but the corners of his lips quirked up. "Some dishes are vital enough not to need elaboration." His hands settled again, this time onto my hips. Then he leaned down, opened his mouth, and took my cock in deep.

Once more I could enjoy the warmth and weight on me, the scent of him, the off-color sounds he made as he worked, and the feeling of his silk sheets against my skin. But all of that faded before the wet heat of Wolfe's mouth around me. He sucked me roughly, telling me without words what he meant to consume until I used language not suitable except during sudden disasters, tax season, and between the sheets. Then Wolfe had to hold me down to keep me from choking him while he finally got what he wanted.

Afterward, he licked his lips. He always does, but it's a lot easier to tolerate in his bedroom than in the office after he's drunk the foam off a glass of beer.

"Good?" I managed to ask him after a while.

"Don't preen. As you well know, superb."

"I must be in season. In this climate, Goodwins tend to be summer fruits, fully ripe between--"

"Shut up," he said, the words a lot more lenient than usual. Then he demonstrated one way to follow his advice. His mouth tasted of three spices and a fourth, familiar flavoring. His hips shifted, and I wrapped my arms around him before taking the lead in our next dance. Not long after, he added something across my bare skin that also wasn't mace, anise, or cardamom.

After we were done playing with spices, I sat up and enjoyed a stretch. My shower hadn't been wasted, but I would need another one soon. With that thought, I turned to examine first Wolfe, and then his sheets, and then Wolfe again. I didn't bother hiding my grin. "There are spice stains everywhere. You realize, given the smell, both the housekeeping service and the laundry will think you eat in bed."

Instead of provoking a grunt, my words made his lips twitch in amusement. "They will be correct. It seems I do."

"Fine. Far be it from me to discourage you from enjoying yet another consuming passion."

"Pfui." The familiar word turned my grin into a smile.

It's funny, the things for which you can develop a taste.


End file.
